With the Most Illogical Love
by Khoshekh42
Summary: Spirk. Letter from Kirk to Spock after Spock died in Wrath of Khan. Way longer than I intended it to be. Rated T for themes.
1. With the most illogical love

Dear Spock,

I write this to you of necessity. Also, Bones is making me write it. He says that I'm going crazy. I have to say that I pretty much am. You're making me go insane Spock. You died, and I can't take it anymore. I'm going mad with grief. I promise that I will do anything in my power as captain to bring you back. I'll be sitting the captain's chair, and I'll look over, expecting to see you at your station. But you aren't and it's some other science officer in your place. I don't even know his name. I don't care. For all I care, it could be McCoy that was working right beside me, but it wouldn't be you. Every time that I expect to see you, and see this other guy instead, I get so angry. I want to attack him, and I think that he's noticed. He thinks that I hate him, and I do. But I don't. I know that that isn't logical but it's true. I hate him, because he's not you. He's got black hair, so for a split second I can think that it's you, and I think that that moment of calm and peace fuels my anger more. But I don't hate him either. I know that he's doing his job, and I know that I shouldn't hate him. I know that it isn't god damn _logical_ to hate him, but I almost do. I almost would rather not have a science officer here then have to watch someone else do your job.

It's not logical, Spock. None of it is logical. I hate it. I hate how illogical it is. I hate how much I care. I hate it so much. I'm always angry. I'm always depressed. I'm always empty. I am so emotional, Spock, and I can't turn it off. I want to lose emotion. I'd rather be totally empty then to feel all of this, and yet I don't want to lose it. I can't handle it anymore, but I couldn't stand to lose it. I hardly even know what 'it' is, really. Emotions. Thoughts. Living. Now I'm not about to throw myself outside of the ship, but I'd be lying if the thought hadn't crossed my mind.

Don't worry about me, though. Not that you can. You're dead. That feels weird to say, especially because the crew skirts around it every time that it comes up. Even when it comes to who's going down to the surface on so-and-so planet. Me, Bones, and… that random science officer that I've yet to learn his name. I think that he pities me, Spock. Or hates me. Both. I don't know. I don't even care anymore.

Speaking of skirting around subjects. Bones has been reading this over my shoulder when he gets the chance, so I've been avoiding the main subject that I think needs to be addressed with this. The main thing- the only thing- that I've been able to think about since you died to save the ship. I can't stop, but if I keep thinking about it, I'll collapse in on myself like a dying star. So that is why I need to tell you about this, because if I don't say anything then I'll actually drive myself crazy, but if I tell someone, it'll become so much more real. So saying it to you doesn't really count anymore does it? It doesn't really mean anything. So I'll probably drive myself to insanity anyway, but it should feel good to put on paper. I'm still stalling, and if you could read this you'd probably give one of those sighs that you always denied existed. Get on with it, I suppose. And yet, there's Bones trying to read this over my shoulder, and if I say this now, then I won't be able to go back from it. As I said, it'll become real.

Spock. Nobody's said your name since the funeral. You wouldn't have liked my eulogy much. It was way too emotional. And yet, I felt it described you well. Human. Your soul is very human. And yes, I know that that isn't logical at all. Yet that's how you were. Or perhaps it's the idealized version of you that I've practically created in my head, but it's how I saw you and whether that was right or not is frankly completely up for grabs. I can see that I'm not the only one that's been effected by your death. Though I can't imagine anyone else going through the torture that I'm going through, the pain, the suffering, and the… anger.

McCoy has been telling me about the seven stages of grief. Something about if I know what to expect, it might be easier for me. It wasn't. Shock, which I got through slower than I thought I would. It was well past your funeral before I got through it. Denial, which left a toll on me. That was the most times I'd glanced over to your station, just in case that you'd come back while I wasn't looking. Bargaining. That was an odd one. I've never been a religious person. You know that. Yet, soon after I realized that you were gone, I felt that there had to be a way to get you back. I prayed every night. I thought that there must be some way. That you could be brought back to me. Guilt was one of the worst. What if. That was the beginning of practically every thought that I had during that stage. What if I'd stopped you from going? What if you'd taken a little less time? What if we'd opened the chamber? What if I'd gone instead? I felt that if _I'd_ done something different, then you might still be alive. Anger was hard for the rest of the crew. I would lash out, as if, instead of being my fault anymore, it was theirs. _That_ was when they pitied me. They pitied how emotionally unstable I was. How so obviously messed up I was. And when I realized how much they pitied me, I fell, almost seamlessly, into the next stage. Depression. It was so sudden, that the crew didn't even realize how terribly I'd started the day. It wasn't until one of the ensigns spilled their trey of food all over my shirt that they realized. Because, for the last few weeks, I'd have glared, and started yelling at him, I now just backed away, and walked out of the room. I went back to my quarters, and I stayed there until McCoy practically forced me out. Nothing improved for two weeks. I would sit in my quarters, until someone- usually Bones- would come in to force me to go eat, or go to the bridge. I say would, yet it's still happening. That was what happened just before now, as I'm sitting in Sick Bay, and Bones is forcing me to write this. The next stage, as McCoy told me, was acceptance. Acceptance. Accepting that you died. Accepting that you're not coming back. Accepting that it wasn't my fault. Accepting there was nothing that I, or anyone else could've done about it. Accepting that life will go on. And yet, I can't imagine how anything could get better, how I could possibly accept that you died. That you just aren't _here_ anymore. When I told him this, he gave me that pitying smile that I've seen so much in the past few months. And then he told me that nobody feels like that, and once you do, that's when you've already accepted your grief. That didn't really make me feel any better. I don't think he thought that it would. But he'd hoped. I think that I pity him. Because he thinks that I'm going to get better. He thinks that this letter will help, but I don't think that it will. It might, but it's not going to magically fix me like he thinks it will.

I still won't just write it. I'm still stalling. I've been stalling just saying it for years now, and perhaps you'd guessed it. I don't know. If you did, then I'm sorry. If you didn't… then I suppose that I have to write it now. Because McCoy says that I have to write my feelings, and this is how I feel. One of those many, many emotions that I can't contain any longer. One of the emotions that keeps swirling around inside of me. With all of the accumulated shock, denial, bargaining, anger, and depression. Something that feels like hope, but softer. Something that should keep me happy, but can't because you're gone.

I've fallen in love you, Spock. I don't feel any better having written it. I haven't been magically fixed like every movie says you will be when you admit that you love someone. I don't know how I feel about it. I feel scared. I'm blushing, and I think that Bones has noticed. He's also noticed that I started crying, which I haven't done since I truly felt the emotions that I had. I know that I said that there are emotions swirling through me, but it isn't the same. I feel these emotions, but just the emotions themselves, and not the true _feeling_ of them. Like eating when you have a cold, and you can feel the food in your mouth, but you can't quite taste the full spectrum of flavor. I feel like I've been floating around, not quite experiencing things through my own body.

I do love you. I really do. And somehow, now that I've said it, it doesn't seem to be so huge now. Like wanting a bike for your birthday so bad, but then when you get it, you find that you don't really care for it anymore. You still like it, but it doesn't seem like your world is going to end if you don't get the bike. I love you, and though I accepted that a long time ago, it still seemed like the most important thing happening in my life- second only to your death- and now… while still a big part of my life, it doesn't seem quite so important.

Did you know? I really don't know if you knew. I don't think you did though. You probably would've found the logical thing to be to tell me that you knew, and tell me- in the nicest, most professional way possible- that I didn't have a chance in hell.

I have so much more to say, yet I can't find the words to say them. I think that Bones knows how much I have to say, because every time I look like I'm about to stop writing, he looks at me with this really intense stare. You know how he is. Knew. I keep fluctuating from present to past tense. I'm talking to _you._ I'm talking to _Spock_. It's been months, except I still haven't quite gotten used to saying anything about you in past tense.

I think that I understand a bit more now why Bones made me write this. I think that he wanted- and still wants- me to realize what I'm feeling. That I've had so many emotions in the past months, that I can't even sort out what I'm feeling. And that I've bottled it in so much that I can't process any of it anymore. I think that he wanted me to sort it all out so that I can start that process of accepting what happened. Not that I'm anywhere close to accepting any of it yet. It still feels like a whirlpool of emotion, and I feel like I'm about to drown in it. But maybe a little bit slower.

I know that I've been using a lot of metaphors and flowery language in this letter thing, and you probably wouldn't understand half of it, but it's not as if you're ever going to read this? I mean. You're dead. I haven't _accepted_ it per se, but I at least realize that it's a fact, and that nothing I can do can change that. Just like I can't change the fact that I'm in love with you. I practically went through the whole seven stages of grief when I first realized that I was in love with you. First came the shock. I was definitely surprised by that realization. I never really expected to fall in love with a Vulcan- however human his soul might be. The denial came soon after, trying to tell myself that I couldn't love you. That I didn't care for you like that. I knew that we were definitely friends, that I loved you, but not that I'd _fallen in love_ with you. Bargaining wasn't quite so much bargaining as, I realized that I loved you, but I was trying to get myself to fall _out_ of love with you. It didn't work- obviously. The more that I tried to get myself to not be in love with you, the more in love with you I fell. It sounds poetic, and not the logical thing, but it happened. Guilt felt very different too. I felt guilty that I had to put you through the hardships of friend-zoning someone. I'd been there before, and it feels terrible. It's so awkward, and you eventually just drift away from the person. I didn't want to make you have to do that. That feeling transferred through the rest of it all, up until I did accept it. Anger was strange. I wasn't mad at you, not in the slightest. If anything, I was pissed at myself for letting myself fall in love with you. Like it was my fault somehow. The depression was more internalized. I know that you noticed that. You asked me if I was feeling alright. That meant so much to me, and you didn't even realize that. I realized in that moment that it didn't matter. It wouldn't affect our relationship any. It wouldn't break any part of that, because our bond was so strong that it couldn't be torn by how I felt. I realized that I shouldn't be down about how I felt, that I really didn't have any way to change it, and that I shouldn't get depressed about the fact that I'd fallen in love with someone. Falling in love sounds like such a beautiful and elegant process, but I realize now how messy it is. With every other person that I've fallen in love with, it was that nice feeling like you were just falling into a bed of flowers. I know that you don't really understand, because I don't think that you've ever really fallen in love. I don't really know. Did you love T'Pring? I don't know at all. You've never really talked about that at all. You didn't even want to talk about it during Pon Farr. I could understand this, but I can't say that I didn't feel hurt by it. You were dying and you didn't bother to tell me.

I never quite understood the Vulcan ways as much as I should have. You probably explained more to me than any Vulcan had told a human- other than the rare instances like your mother and father. I never quite understood how lucky I was. That you would tell me about the Pon Farr, even though it was frowned upon by Vulcan cultural standards. That I even got to know you. For all I know, there's a chance that I could have never met you. Never have gotten to know you, and never have fallen in love with you. I- and the rest of the crew- would've died in your place, if not long before that. The whole crew was effected, as I said, and none as much as me.

McCoy is joking with me, and telling me that I don't have to write a ten page paper. I know that it was a joke, but I almost feel like I'd have to write a ten page paper to completely say how I feel. I plan to start from the beginning. I plan to spill my heart out on this paper, as many pages as it takes. However much you might scoff at the blatant display of emotion, I plan to write down exactly what happened.

People say that you know when you fall in love. I don't think that that was the case for me. There was definitely a moment in which I realized that I was in love, but I know that I'd fallen in love with you far before that. I don't think that even Bones- who I'm guessing figured out long ago that I'd fallen for you- knew how early, or how hard I'd fallen. As I said, there was an obvious moment that I realized I'd fallen for you- and even though the denial of it came swiftly after, I still realized that what I felt for you wasn't just friendship. That moment wasn't too far into what was supposed to be a relaxing shore leave. That planet that produced your dreams. I never quite told anyone why I chose to stay, but I chose to stay- completely out of denial- for Ruth. I first saw her there, and I realized that I no longer felt anything. I realized that I didn't want her anymore. I wanted you. The phase of shock barely even took an hour, and the denial hit hard. I chose to stay for Ruth, I told myself over and over again, even though I spent most of my time there with you. That's why I seemed so off. You even asked me about it, I remember. You thought that I should head back to the ship and lie down in my quarters. You thought that I must've been ill, or that I'd hurt myself running away from the samurai. You never suspected that it was because I was in love. You were so kind to me. You even offered to bring me back to the ship, more concerned about my health then you were about getting some much needed rest and leisure in. You always did work yourself too hard. That was something I loved and hated about you. You were so determined- and, daresay, passionate- about your work. You always thought about your job, and about the rest of the crew before you thought about your own safety. It was my health over yours because I was the captain, and Star Fleet says to protect the captain's life over your own.

My hands are now shaking as I write this, thinking about all of the things that made you such a beautiful soul. The things that made me fall for you in the first place, and then keep falling deeper and deeper still. I don't think that I'll ever quite stop loving you. Whether I do- as McCoy says I will- move on one day, and stop grieving, I will still love you. I'll never quite let go of that hope that still lingers that you did love me. I think that's something good out of all of this. I still have that hope. I can still hang on to that dream that you loved me, that you cared for me the way that I still care about you. While I know that most of this is completely inconceivable, I still have that hope that, had I told you, you might've said similarly. I never got the complete rejection, so I can never really know for sure what exactly it was that you felt for me. Whether it was a friendly affection, brotherly, or something more, I will never know. And I think that I'm at peace with that, at the very least. I think that I came to my peace with that before you die. I knew that I would never be able to pluck up the courage to tell you anything, so I came to peace with the fact that I would never know what your exact reaction would be. I'm glad that I've made that peace. I have one solid think amidst this tossing, and whirling sea of grief. One fact I know will never change- one that I've gotten peace with.

Once again, I'm sure that you'd be scoffing if you actually could read this. Not that you would be allowed to, even if you were alive. I wouldn't let you. No offense to you, but I'm not really the kind of person who'd be likely to spill their guts out to someone, if I'm sure that they don't feel similarly. And once again, no offense to you, but I have little faith that you'd fallen in love with me. I can't tell you how much I wish you did- had, whatever- even if I were only to find out in the minutes before your death. I feel like that might've given me a bit of peace. But deep down, I know that that's a load of bullshit. It would've made me angry. I would've wallowed in the anger and misery for not knowing how you felt until minutes before I lost you. Yet I kid myself that it would be more painful than the pain of not knowing either way- something that I've already blessed as a good thing. Sometimes I find the human race- myself in particular- even more illogical than you ever voiced. How illogical this letter would seem to you. I am writing to a dead man. On doctor's orders. And I'm spewing out the most illogical things, aren't I? Sometimes, the things that I write here barely even make sense to myself. But nevertheless I still write them. Because I'm trying to get down those raw feelings that are now bubbling up for the first time in a long time.

I feel a little bit uneasy writing this. Like a character in a horror movie might feel- but not at all. It's an odd feeling writing to a dead man. I don't know how to feel about it. As I sit here in Sick Bay, I know that I should feel like its familiar, but somehow I feel like I'm sitting at an old friend's house. The feeling that I know where I am, and that there are familiar aspects to it, but there are oddly subtle things that have been changed, and that's making it very uneasy as a whole. I'm writing to a dead man. That's hit me hard as I write this, and I can feel McCoy's pitying stare when he knows that I'm not looking. I think that he knows how much this has affected me. I can tell by how he looks at me when he thinks I can't see him. He looks at me like he sort of knows how I feel, and… I do know that he pities me. Because however much he thinks that he understands what I'm going through with your death, he really does think that I'm pitiful. And I am. I spend half of my time sitting in my quarters, lying on my back, and just staring at the ceiling. I want to cry, but I can't. It feels like I used all of my tears before I have none left to use. Used to. I'm crying now. That's past tense. God, it feels like I don't even understand past tense versus present tense anymore. Like my entire kindergarten year was put to waste. I can't discern when it's okay to say write about this and talk about you in past tense, or present tense. I don't want to use past tense. It makes it feel final in a way that even the funeral didn't make it. Past tense means that you're not coming back. Past tense means you're not here. Past tense is too final. I can't do it in past tense, because, even though I got over that stage, it still feels like I'd be admitting defeat. Like I was saying 'yeah, he's dead, so what, who cares?' And that's not even remotely how I feel. I feel that I am going to bring you back whatever it takes, and at whatever consequence to me. I would give my own life to let you live the rest of yours in a heartbeat. And I know that's not logical, but I don't give a damn. Love isn't logical. Love doesn't make any sense to anyone. You fall in love, and you can't help it. You fall in love with whoever your heart wants. Your heart doesn't care if it isn't logical. When you fall in love, you don't care if it would take years to be with them. When you fall in love, you don't care about your own safety, as long as they are safe. When I fell in love, I didn't care if I had to travel to the end of the universe and back to show it, I loved you. I still love you. I can't help falling in love with you, Spock. I can practically hear your voice, telling me how illogical human emotions are, but this one, this one isn't human. Your dad loves your mother. You can see it. Everyone should see that. Except Vulcan's are so god damn blinded by the fact that emotions are so 'illogical' and ' _human_ ' that they can't see that Vulcan's can fall in love. I'm not trying to say that you fell in love with me, and I'm not trying to convince you that love is logical. Wouldn't be trying to. I don't know anymore. What I'm trying to say is that Vulcan's are really hypocritical if they want to tell us humans that we can't fall in love, when they're doing it. Even freaking T'Pring fell in love with Stonn. How are Vulcans creatures of pure logic, if many of them do something that's so illogical? Once again, love isn't logical. You question- used to question- how I could possibly be so illogical. Yet you didn't even know the most illogical thing that I've ever done. I fell in love with you. That's how illogical I am. I am _so_ illogical, that I fell in love with my first officer. I fell in love with a Vulcan. I fell in love with that human soul. I fell in love with you, Spock.

I fell in love with you. I still love you. I'm so in love with you that it physically hurt me to lose you. I will find you again. That's what writing this letter forced me to see. I will bring you back to life at whatever cost. Because that's what love is.

With the most illogical love,

Jim

.

 **A/N: What? Me? Uploading a story? Even though I have so many other things that I haven't uploaded? I know, kill me later, because I promise FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART that I'll get some more of Rufus up AS SOON AS I PHYSICALLY CAN. Plus I've got a Stucky thing in the works, but that won't be uploaded for a while.**


	2. With the most logical love

Dear Jim,

It scares me that I can't remember some things. I want to remember. I know that I will eventually remember it all, and that it's most likely that I just need to wait a little bit, but I am still scared. The process took me down to my roots, and, as much as I dislike saying it, I have humanity in my roots.

How do you feel? That's what my mother wants to know. How do I feel? How do I describe how I feel? I feel scared, but I can't tell my mother that. I feel confused, but I can't tell my mother that. I feel many other things, but I can't tell anyone that.

I feel fine. That's what I told her. And yet I don't. I feel worse than fine, and better than fine, and I don't understand it. I am glad that I'm beginning to remember everything. I am glad that you don't treat me any different for have losing my memory.

I was going through the ships logs and documents, in some sort of effort to remember even more of what I learned before, when I found your letter. I must say that I have a lot to write about the content in your letter. I think that the first thing that I want to say is that I did not know about your feelings toward me. Now that I know, I'm finding that much more obvious than I think that I found it before. As I said, I did not notice. I believe that the reasoning behind this was that I simply was not looking for it. I didn't think it possible for anyone to love me, an unemotional Vulcan. You touched on this. After addressing that, a question that you asked several times throughout your letter, I find myself compelled to write my response to the rest of the letter, some of the things that were going through my head as I read it.

Are you really going mad, Jim? I struggle to understand why one would start to drive oneself insane, because of something that was done to save an entire ship. As I said, and you repeated to me back on Vulcan, the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few. I presume that you speak under the influence of survivor's guilt. This is shown in many ways. You find yourself feeling guilty about someone else dying to save you. You seem to find yourself in a position where you'd rather yourself be dead than me. I want to tell you that you need not feel that, especially now that I'm alive. I wish I could go back, and tell you not to worry. Not to feel guilty. I know you probably don't like me saying that it's not logical to hate the science officer who replaced me, and it's not, yet I feel a twinge of that anger myself. I do not like that he took my place. I feel an odd sort of attachment to my station, and, as you say, seeing someone else there pushes an unfortunate emotional response from me.

Please don't throw yourself off of the ship.

About the science officer, you probably should have learned his name. It is Terry Nelson. As well as learning about everything he needed to know about things related to being a science officer, he also dabbled in psychology. So, yes, Jim, I can answer that he probably did notice everything that you were doing. I do not, however, think that he hates you for it. It's a very strong possibility that he pities you however. That isn't a bad thing though. He saw that you were going through a rough time, and he felt bad about that. It is a very human emotion, pity is. If it is not your fault that a person isn't happy, then you haven't much reason to feel bad.

Has no one really said anything about me since the funeral? That seems a little bit odd to me. It seems like talking should help. Which is why McCoy is making you write this. There was an audio file of your eulogy. You are wrong however. While it was definitely rather off putting to listen to my own eulogy, I did like it. It did fit me. And yet it didn't. I am not an emotional person, Jim. Rather, I'm not emotional for a human. I am for a Vulcan. I suppress my emotions as much as I possibly can. It's just what I do. One of the only times you've seen genuine emotions from me was from the time of the Pon Farr. While this is one of the most emotional times for Vulcans, it was almost made worse by my human heritage. Humans are innately more emotional than Vulcans are. When I thought I'd killed you, I felt terrible. I felt worse than that. I felt what you must have felt after I died, except worse, because I thought that I had been the one to kill you. When I turned around, and I saw you, and… it might not have looked it, but I lost it a little bit. You saw me smile, and that was all that I would show you. I felt so much more. Like what you describe later on in your letter. I felt happy, and yet I still had all of the guilt that I'd gotten from killing you in the first place. I think it was because I still felt bad that I had taken your life, and even though you were alive I felt that the deed that I had done hadn't gone away, but almost that you had come back and were going to give me grief for killing you. You didn't though. I think that that makes you special.

The seven stages of grief. It's interesting how everyone goes through the same process with grief. The same seven general seven stages. Did the amount of time that was given between me dying, and then coming back to life give you time to accept it? Had you accepted my death before I came back to life? If I died again, soon, then would you start back over with shock? Or would you start again with depression, or acceptance, if you got there?

Stalling. I've always found the concept fascinatingly illogical. You know that you're going to have to end up saying something about whatever it is anyway, and yet you try to waste time by rambling on about whatever in an attempt to not have to tell whoever it is that you're needing to tell whatever it is. It just prolongs the awkwardness, the tension, and pain.

You fell in love with me. Jim, you might feel now that this isn't such a big deal, and yet to me, it feels like everything. You loved me, you still love me, and I see that now. Now that I haven't been (quite illogically) telling myself that you don't. Didn't. Even I seem to be confusing tenses.

I really didn't know. If I did, you would have known, and now that I do know, I guarantee that you will know that I do. Because you have a chance. You have a million chances in hell, earth and heaven. Because I've fallen in love with you. It didn't make sense at first, but I love you and I can see that now. I feel that I should write pages and pages about it, but I don't have to, because it's true even in the simplest form. I love you. And that's how it is, and there's nothing more to say. Except there's everything left to say. But there's no way to write it down on paper.

You understand me, and we have a mutual realization how hard it is to write down how you feel on paper. It's easier in some senses, but impossible in others. I know how Bones is, Jim. I _know._ At one point, at the point that you wrote this, it technically was correct to say knew, but now I know. You don't have to use past tense anymore. It's okay to say that I know.

McCoy is not making me write this. I think that I find this odd that I write this of my own free will. I am not emotional. And yet, writing this, I feel myself waxing a bit poetic. I'm obviously not going to start on with saying things about 'love being a gently blossoming flower', because that isn't how it works for me at all. My love for you is more like a ship crashing down to a planet. From far away, it looks almost peaceful and at ease. But up close, from a personal point of view, it's obviously crashing and everything is in a state of panic.

You have been using metaphors and figurative language quite extensively. Yet so have I. I have understood most of them. Even the simile using having a cold and eating. I did read it, which you obviously didn't expect, and I am now wondering how you're going to react when you find out that I have. I'm not sure you will be angry, but I'm not even sure you remember writing this. It's been a long time. I have abandoned this letter more times than you will know, and now it's been about three months since I started it, which makes for around eight months since you wrote it. Ten since I died. I too, went through some of the same seven stages when I realized my love for you. For me, the shock was more shock that I'd _fallen in love_ with you, rather than I'd fallen in love with _you._ It felt very natural that, if I had to fall in love with someone, that I would fall in love with you. Denial was practically the same illogical step. I could not believe that I had, once again, _fallen in love_ with you, and I denied it with all of my will. Bargaining was less for me trying to fall out of love (as you described it) than trying to ignore the feelings that I had. To shove them down into some deep corner of my mind and never think about them ever. You describe yours as 'The more I tried to get myself to not be in love with you, the more in love with you I fell.' While it was a different scenario, it describes what I went through rather well. The more I tried to shove down my emotions- and mind you, I wasn't just pushing down my love, I ended up somehow figuring out that ignoring all feeling worked better- the more I felt it bubbling it up. And the more it came up, the more I tried to shove it down. It became a circle of emotion and no emotions that never ended, until the guilt set in. The guilt for me, as well as the guilt that you talked about, included the feeling of betrayal of the Vulcan species. I feel like I've already betrayed them by denying the position at the Science Academy, and the fact that I have fallen in love with a human man feels like betraying them even more. Vulcans are a very logical species, and while their method for choosing a mate is very illogical, the mate that they pick is quite logical. An individual who does not have a record of family illness, an individual who has good genes. Someone who can continue the family line. A man choosing another man as a mate is so illogical, it's almost laughable. As it is, my father was frowned upon for choosing a human woman as a mate. So what would the Vulcan race think if I, someone who already chose Star Fleet over the Science Academy, who is already of human decent, chose not only a human mate, but a male one too? That guilt consumed me for a while. Until I finally confided in my mother. She told me a story that she'd been taught in history class back on Earth. Back when they were still using the Gregorian calendar, the United States of America legalized same-sex marriage in all states on July 26th of 2015. She told me that for years before that there were individual states that were legalizing it one by one, and same-sex couples and other people supporting the legislature in other states were fighting for their rights. My mother told me that there were some states that frowned deeply upon same-sex couples, and instead of just not having a law that legalized marriage, they chose to go further and ban it all together. And still there were people in those states that wanted to get married. Here my mother finally got to her point. She said that even though the majority of people in these states had deep-seated homophobia, there were still many people who flaunted their same-sex partners in public. People would taunt them, some would even go as far as attacking them, even killing them, and yet still people would go out and tell the world that they had their rights, and they were going to stand by that until someone did something about it, and it would be made legal for them to marry their partner. Even though society told them that what they were doing was wrong, they did it anyway, and- as my mother quite eloquently put it- gave a big 'screw you' to society. While I still wallowed in my guilt for a few more days, it was still my mother's story that pulled me out of it. I believe that my anger might have blended together with guilt for I skipped right over that I could go straight into depression, which wasn't really depression for me, but rather wallowing in my own self-pity. It was very much internalized, just as yours was, and likewise, it was the same logic that dragged me out of mine that got you out of yours. Why should I feel bad about something that I couldn't help? Something that happens, and people- for the most part- view as a good thing? That's how I rid myself of that self-pity that held me down for longer than it should have. Falling in love with someone, you say, sounds beautiful and elegant, and it does. Except on Vulcan, it almost has negative connotations. Emotional connotations. If I were to go back to Vulcan, and tell everyone that I'd fallen in love, I would be at risk of the same 'experiments' that happened back when I was a child. A 'logical' reason for bullying me, really. A name that covered up their teasing. They wanted to see how hard they had to push me for me to give an emotional response. They made fun of me. It took to them making fun of my mother for me to give them the emotional response that they wanted so much from me, and they didn't bully me after that. There wasn't a logical reason. Now, if I tell them that I've fallen in love, there would be that same 'logical' reason to bully me. To elicit an emotional response. They could repeat the experiments that they conducted as a child. I am now an adult. Adult humans are less emotional, and less compulsive than children. If I went back and told them that I'd fallen in love, it would remind them that I was the child who stands out on Vulcan and Earth, and now the adult who is in Star fleet because I have no true home. If I went back to Vulcan right now, and told them that I'd fallen in love, then that would be the final proof that I don't belong on Vulcan. You discuss later that my father fell in love with my mother, and I realize that. I see that. But none on Vulcan see that. They all feel that that isn't something that we can talk about. Many Vulcan's actively say that they are so unemotional that they don't fall in love. Jim, I love you and sometimes I want to tell everyone that, but I don't because, however illogical this sounds, I am stricken by how illogically logical it is. Peer pressure. That's what it is. It's so illogical, but I can't help but to bend to it. I want to tell my father, but I feel like he would be disappointed. Even though I know that he wouldn't be. Because he fell in love with a human, just like I did. And I know that it's okay. And I know that he knows that it's okay. But there's such a disconnect between he and I that I can't bring myself to tell him like I did with my mother.

You understand Vulcan ways more than you should. I tell you more than I really should have. As you said, I probably have told you more than any other Vulcan has told other people. You saw how T'Pau reacted when I told her that you and McCoy were my friends. She made me vouch for your behavior and she still didn't trust you. She didn't like that you were human. I told you about it because you were my friend. My T'hy'la. That was something that I don't regret.

Even though you didn't write ten pages, I feel that six sufficed. While there were only six pages of writing, there was so much more that was put into, emotionally, that I was able to derive from what you wrote. Like I said previously, sometimes you don't need to write pages upon pages to explain how you feel. Sometimes saying that you love a person just takes three words. Sometimes it just takes a glance. Sometimes it takes a person's mere presence to tell someone that they love them.

You're not alone in not knowing when you fell in love. I don't know either. Again, as with you, I remember when I realized that I fell in love with you. For me, it was when I, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott were trapped on the New Paris colony. I thought that I was going to die down there, and that was when I realized that I had to get back. That I had to get back to _you_. And that's why I pulled the stunt about expending all of the fuel as a sort of flare. That's the emotional outburst that happened. It wasn't fear of death like everyone assumed it was, it was fear of not being able to see you again. You asked me why I did it, and I was planning to tell the truth, but then I didn't. I didn't _lie_ , but I just said that it was logical, and looking back, it was. Had I not done it, we would have died for sure. If I had, then we had a slight chance of living. A slight chance of seeing you again. I have to say that I cannot remember asking you if you were okay. The thing is, that I have asked you so many times if you are okay, that that time must not have made much of an impression. Jim, you are not a careful person. You get into trouble way more than any other Star Fleet officer, and I can't say that I approve. I don't want you getting into more trouble than you can handle. I work myself too hard? Do I really? I don't really notice. I always tried- and still try- my best. I am determined. And I am passionate about my work. If I were not, I would've taken the job at the Science Academy, and I would've never applied to Star Fleet. It does not offend me when you speak of the more human side of me as much as I let on. I do hold your health over mine, but for more reasons than you state. It is because you are the captain, and Star Fleet does say to protect the life of your captain over your own, but that is not the only reason. For one, I feel that you get into more trouble than I do, and because of that, I not only consider the possibility that you might've gotten hurt on a mission, I practically assume that you have gotten hurt. I also feel that you are a better individual than I am. I feel that, given the choice of you living, or me, I would choose you simply because you are a good person. I did that once already, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I fell in love with you, and that holds your life over mine more than rules and regulations could. I would- and in fact, regularly do- break numerous Star Fleet regulations for you. I should care, but I don't. Because I love you.

I do not understand people who marry someone, claim that they are their soulmate, and then have relations with somebody else. Whether they are cheating on the person, or the person is long dead, I do not understand someone who could just move on if they already have, or had, a supposed 'soulmate'. I will love you until the end of all days, because you are my T'hy'la. I do love you, Jim. You expected rejection from me, had you told me your feelings. I did too. That's one of the reasons that I did not tell you when I got back from the New Paris colony. I thought that you would reject me, completely disgusted with me. I thought that you would hate me, and reject me right there on the bridge, and I couldn't take that. I feel a friendly affection. I feel a brotherly affection. And I do feel that something more. You will learn. I plan to tell you this. I plan to give this letter to you. I plan. I planned to tell you after coming back from the New Paris colony. So I don't know for sure if it will happen. There's more of a chance now because I know now how you feel. Because I don't believe that you would trick me with something like this. Because I could feel the emotion that you put into your own letter.

I have not scoffed once while reading your letter. I'm sorry that I've read it. It really does feel like a major invasion of your privacy, and I apologize for that. I don't take any offence to you thinking that I hadn't fallen in love with you, because that's what I wanted to you think. I wanted you to think that I had a simple friendly, or brotherly bond to you, nothing more, and certainly nothing less. I think that it's good thing that you didn't know, just to find out my feelings mere minutes before I died. It would, as you say, tear you apart. You would wonder what would've happened had you told me months, or years before then. You are writing to a dead man, but it isn't as illogical as you might think. I think that I would probably do the same were our roles reversed. The things that you are writing would probably be considered illogical by the average Vulcan. But I am not the average Vulcan. To me, every word that you write makes sense. I can understand how you feel, even if it's just in the most primitive way possible. It makes sense in the way that falling in love makes sense. You feel the emotions, and yet you don't understand them at all. You don't understand how it makes sense, but you feel that it does, somehow. And honestly, the average Vulcan would probably think that the things that I am writing are very illogical too.

I do not, however understand how you might feel like a character in a horror movie. I understand how you might feel odd writing to someone that you presume to be dead, but feeling like you were in a horror film does not make sense to me. Is it that you simply felt uneasy writing it, so you felt that that was the best way to describe that uneasiness? Or is it more than that? Something about how you feel something supernatural about writing to a dead man? What is it, precisely, that makes you feel so uneasy about writing to me? It is something that McCoy felt was necessary to your sanity, and I feel the same way. Had you not written to me, then you probably would have buried how you felt, and never expressed your feelings, bottling it all up like I tried to do. Nothing would have been worse than that. Jim, I don't know how you would have reacted to bottling it up like that, because it certainly didn't work for me. It felt like I was going to explode, and I had had experience bottling up major emotions before. I touched on how the other Vulcan kids- the pure Vulcan kids, as they liked to remind me- would do 'experiments' on how much it took to get an emotional outburst from me. I had to bottle up so much of that feeling- the anger that they caused me, and even after that, I still broke when it came to keeping this in. I couldn't handle this one pure emotion, even when I spent a lot of my childhood keeping all of that rage and frustration inside. I did eventually break then, but it isn't something that I like to think about a lot. I could tell that my father was disappointed, even though he didn't show it. My mother was angry when she found out for certain that the other kids were teasing me. She'd guessed that they were long before, but the conclusive proof really made her mad. I remember she told me that it was okay- it was good even- to have emotions, but that I couldn't let those emotions control me. I kept those words with me for a very long time. I still think about that every so often. It became a mantra of sorts for me when I was dealing with suppressing the love that I finally admitted that I felt for you. Don't let your emotions control you, Spock. You can feel what you feel, but don't let that get the better of you. Returning now to something that you say, about how it's hit you hard that I died, I can feel the same about that. Reading your letter really cemented it for me that I had died. I didn't really have much physically proof that I had, and reading you letter was a realization that I wasn't the only one that was affected by my death. Because nothing had changed when I came back, I barely realized that anybody else's whole world was turned upside down. But then I read your letter. And it came to my attention that you were affected just as much as I was, even if it was in a different way. I see that your whole life changed completely. You say that you spent your days lying in your quarters, feeling nothing, but having so many emotions, and I can understand how that feels. It's hard. It's exactly how you describe. Feeling the food in your mouth, but not being able to taste it. I'll take it one step further and say that it's like eating bad food when you have a cold. You wish that you were able to taste, but you're also kind of glad that you can't. You say that love isn't logical. And it isn't. Except the feeling of love feels very logical. It feels right. And now I know how illogical you are, and it makes me happy. I feel great.

I fell in love with you, and I am still in love with you. We have found each other, and that means a lot in this world. This letter has made me realize that I need to tell you. I need to give you this letter. I need to be with you. Because that's what love is.

With the most logical love,

Spock

 **A/N: This... was longer than I expected it to be. When I first wrote this whole thing, I expected to just write the one from Jim to Spock, and it would only be, like, two pages. But NO then I ended writing six pages for that one, THEN I did a sequel thing. That was LONGER than the first one. And I don't know whether to be proud or disappointed. But anyway, here it is, whether you like it or not. And hey, thanks.**


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